فک کنم خیلی پیگیر اخبار The Initiative نبودی
اینا از همون اول گفتن ما میخوام small & agile بمونیم و همون موقع هم گفته شده بود که اینا میخوان به شیوه جدیدی بازیشون رو بسازن و outsource کردن بخش مهمه شیوه کاریشونه.
همین ۷۰ نفر اعضای استودیوشون هم همگی سنیور آرتیست و سنیور دیزاینر و سنیور Producer هستند و قطعا برای Full Production نیاز به نیروهای خیلی بیشتری داشتند و از اول هم برنامه ریزیشون همین روش بوده.
ببین الان The Initiative کار اصلی دیزاین و پیش تولید بازی رو انجام داده و همکاری با یه استودیوی با تجربه ای مثل CD برای کمک به ساخت بازی میتونه خبر خیلی خوبی برای Perfect Dark باشه.
ولی موضوعی که اینجا مطرحه این شیوه خیلی لاکچری بنظر میرسه و هزینه خیلی بیشتری میطلبه نسبت به استخدام نیروهای in-house و مایکروسافت هم باید پول خوبی داده باشه به Square Enix تا راضی شده باشه به این همکاری
اصلا از اسم این استودیو "The Initiative" مشخص بود اینا شیوه کاریشون متفاوت هست و احتمالاش خیلی زیاد هست اینا تیمشون مدتی کمی بعد از تکمیل PD برن سراغ یه بازی جدید و همکاری با یه استودیوی دیگه برای تولید.
پست این یوزر توی ریست ارا هم بخوبی توضیح داده:
The Crystal announcement seems very weird at first glance, but it make sense if you put the pieces together from the last few years:
The Initiative was formed by the previous head of Crystal Dynamics (also the former head of SQE studios/development) and the person who built Crystal into a big AAA studio in the first place for Tomb Raider (2013.)
The director of Perfect Dark was one of the co-directors of the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot (Drew Murray was never the director of PD, he was the design director.)
The Initiative have always talked about staying "small and agile" with a team almost solely made up of senior and lead positions to make AAA games.
With a team of 70+ senior/lead role developers, multiple people at the Initiative have hinted at a unique development/production approach (i.e. heavy outsourcing.)
Given that (according to Jeff Grubb) MS has PD penciled in for 2023, they must be going into full production now and you can't do that with a 70+ person studio.
Crystal Dynamics has a ton of expertise and experience in cinematic story driven action games, plus a large workforce of specialised devs (plus mo-cap stages etc.)
Crystal is coming off a bad release with Avengers (plus Tomb Raider underperforming), Square is likely not happy with the amount of money the studio is currently draining given the location and size of the Crystal studios.
Rather than The Initiative partnering with multiple outsourcing studios, across different locations that haven't work together in the past and don't have certain expertise. They instead partner with crystal which has a large workforce, they are also nearby to The Initiative and are a team that have worked together for a long time on these style of large scale productions.
It also probably solves a lot of issues a team like the Initiative would have been running into during the pandemic (studio growth, production etc.)
I wouldn't be surprised if Square might look to off load them, this could be a potential test for that.